Losing Yourself

A couple weeks ago, a group of tourists reported that a woman had gone missing.  The group was visiting a canyon in Iceland and was instructed to return to the tour bus at a specific time.  When the time came, a leader counted each tourist to make sure everyone was back.  The leader’s count found one woman missing.  Time passed, the woman never returned, and the group began to worry.  They waited for an hour and then notified the police.

The police arrived and organized a search party, including members of the tour group.  They distributed a description of the missing woman and searched and searched to no avail.  The group finally gave up around three in the morning.

At the point of losing hope, someone realized that the woman they had been looking for was in the search party.  She had been with them all along.  In fact, not realizing she was the object of the search, the woman spent a large part of the night searching for herself! 

As it turns out, the group had made several mistakes.  The woman (who was thought to be missing) had changed her clothes and freshened up before meeting the group at the agreed upon time.  Because she was wearing a new outfit, the other tourists didn’t recognize her when they reconvened.  Then, the leader miscounted, mistakenly thinking the group was one short.  On top of that, the woman didn’t recognize the descriptions of herself.  It took hours before she realized she was the person they were searching for.

Many times we approach our spiritual lives in a similar fashion.  We join a church in order to reach the lost.  We focus all our energy on the lost, never taking stock of our own spiritual health.  In the end, we realize that we are people who need to be found.  We are the people who needed saving all along.

As you go through the coming week, recognize your continual need for a savior.  Call on Jesus for grace and mercy anew.  Coming to terms with our own wayward tendencies is actually the first step in truly being found.